Lesley.] 232 f^P"'- 



Supposing the 13 foot coal bed at 261-264 to be genuine (and not 

 a false reading of some small seams of black slate), it can only repre- 

 sent the Pittsburg bed, with a thickness exceeding even its fine pro- 

 portions at Connellsville. The limestone (322-361) will be then in 

 its nominal place at the top of the Barren Measures ; and the bottom 

 of the well will have descended (798-274 =) 524 feet beneath the 

 Pittsburg bed without striking either the Elk Lick or the Upper 

 Freeport Coalbeds ; showing the Barren Measures more than 500 

 feet thick. 



The "sandstone containing gold" (702 to 735) 38 feet thick may 

 then be the upper member of the Mahoning Sandstone; and the sand- 

 stone and soapstone (758-798) 40 feet thick may be its lower mem- 

 ber. Perhaps a few yards further the borer would have struck the 

 Upper Freeport Coalbed. I have seen two small fragments of gold 

 ore, about the size of a pea and hazelnut respectively, with a button 

 of gold, and a certified assay of similar fragments at the U. S. Mint, 

 giving in one case over S80.00 to the j^ound of ore. These frag- 

 ments were said to have come, with many others, out of this well 

 at the depth indicated. They consisted of cubical crystals of iron 

 pyrites sunk in translucent quartz, over which was spread irregular 

 plates of native gold, and in the interstices of the quartz appeared 

 galena, not in any well-formed crystal that I could find. The ore, 

 from whatever region it came, was evidently of extraordinary rich- 

 ness. The well-master reports that he went through three feet of 

 such rock, but did not recognize its value (!) and threw the frag- 

 ments, with a few exceptions, into the tip heap. Two of the owners* 

 tell me that they collected a barrel-full of this tip-stuiF and had it 

 analyzed at the U. S. Mint for gold, and it yielded $3.00 to the ton. 

 They say moreover that the "Cowell Well" on Meadow Run (which 

 lies between Whitely and Dunbar Creeks), say three miles to the N. 

 or N. W. of the Kener Well, passed through the same gold-bearing 

 sandstone at the depth of only 550 feet. Very uncertain accounts 

 of similar strata are reported from one or two other wells in the 

 same district. 



The ease with which an infinite variety of deceptions have been 

 played upon well-owners, company managers, and landholders, both 

 by wandering sharpers and respectable speculators, is of itself suffi- 

 cient to condemn this whole story of the discovery of gold ore in an 



* Mr. Groves and Mr. S. W. Corinth, 350 N. 2d St., Philadelphia. 



